The setting sun was like blood, the orange-red sky gradually darkening.
However, the crowd below had no mood to quietly appreciate the view.
This was the very edge of New Eridu, about three to four kilometers from the venue. No, to call it the edge wasn't entirely inaccurate, as logically, it already fell within New Eridu's boundaries.
It was already home to many scattered citizens, as well as numerous exiles who had wandered to New Eridu, and many Outer Ringers who came to the city for work.
This was the buffer zone between the city and the Outer Ring. But just a few kilometers deeper, it would fully transform into a residential area with a large population.
The ground was constantly bulging, roads fractured where the monster passed, solid foundations buried deep underground shattered, and buildings collapsed with them, like building blocks casually knocked down and crushed by a child.
Disaster accompanied its every move.
Although all the police who arrived after tracking its trail had desperately tried to evacuate people, many were still completely buried in the rubble.
The collapsing buildings created a chain reaction, affecting and involving surrounding structures.
Like dominoes.
Shattered glass reflected the beautiful sky, but what it cast back was a pale, lifeless light.
Scattered yet utterly silent.
Yet, in this disastrous scene, the monster wasn't even deliberately causing destruction. From its behavior, it seemed to just be searching for something here.
But merely by moving underground and searching for its own target in this area, everything on the roads was turned into ruins.
The fractured sections of road and the continuously collapsing buildings, piling up into undulating fields of rubble, made police tracking and evacuation increasingly difficult.
Fortunately, due to the existence of Hollows, all residents had ample experience in how to take shelter. This also made the evacuation and search and rescue efforts much easier.
But for the officers attempting to stop and distract it, these ruins and abandoned cars became even more insurmountable obstacles.
"The monster is getting closer and closer to the city center! I'll try to distract it and stop it from causing further destruction in this area! You all must do your best to find and rescue civilians!"
"Understood!"
As the only Criminal Investigation Special Response Team captain present, and the first to arrive at the scene besides the initial eyewitness Tolun, Zhu Yuan was chasing it through countless ruins, driving and shouting commands into her walkie-talkie.
With her exquisite driving skills, she constantly pursued the monster's movements on roads piled high with countless debris and abandoned cars, all while looking for opportunities to open fire and test its defenses.
Brushing past ruins countless times, it was like walking alongside death. Even so, Zhu Yuan showed no sign of slowing down.
Rounding a corner obscured by car wreckage, a very sharp turn appeared before her.
Slamming on the brakes, she yanked the clutch. Her other hand swiftly wrenched the steering wheel, causing the rear tires to emit fierce blue smoke from friction with the ground, and during the extreme drift, the car's tail even scraped a bright spark off a building.
But Zhu Yuan had no time to worry about minor issues like car scratches right now.
Watching several more buildings become precarious after it passed, Zhu Yuan involuntarily gritted her teeth.
People couldn't understand why this monster, clearly underground, could move so quickly, with nothing able to impede it for even a second.
Just like a fish swimming in water.
But now was clearly not the time to investigate that.
As the only person who could continuously keep up with that monster, Tolun's mind couldn't hold anything else; only a single thought remained. They absolutely had to find a way to stop it before it entered the city center.
But the voice coming from the other end of the walkie-talkie was so powerless.
"There's no way, we can't stop it…"
But words of blame for the other party's attitude couldn't be spoken, because they had seen all of Zhu Yuan's attempts.
For a monster lurking underground, thick soil was its excellent protective layer; no weapon could even graze it.
And the Public Security's heavy weapons were no different. Because it moved underground, by the time the upper layer of soil was blasted open, the monster below would have long since moved away.
No matter how they tried, the final result remained unchanged. Heavy cannons, lasers, missiles—no matter what, even when it was closest to the surface, hitting it didn't provoke the slightest reaction.
Even the Riot Suppression K22, which she had just received and was only available to Public Security elites, failed to cause a ripple when fired at full power.
Watching the monster occasionally shift direction, ignoring all attacks. Realizing that no matter what she tried, she couldn't get its attention, Zhu Yuan could only helplessly grip the steering wheel tighter.
"What in the world is this monster! The stuff Public Security can bring out has less effect on it than the sound of an explosion…"
Now that all available methods had been tried, Zhu Yuan could only grab her walkie-talkie and urge once more:
"Have you still not found Grandmaster Yixuan? Or Miyabi? Still no contact?"
Facing Zhu Yuan's urgency, the person on the other end of the walkie-talkie was equally anxious, but could only helplessly reply:
"Sorry, all attempts to contact them have received no response so far."
Listening to the helpless and apologetic voice on the phone, they could only reply:
"Grandmaster Yixuan went out to complete an HIA commission to clear high-risk Ether-creatures, and is currently unreachable in the Hollows."
Underground, the moving Diablos felt a surge of irritation from the constant noise above. It had been quite a while since it suddenly arrived in this completely unfamiliar environment; it could no longer quite remember how many days and nights had passed.
When it first arrived here, these humans didn't seem much different from the humans of its original habitat, and there were even more of them. Having once suffered and barely escaped, it became instantly stressed.
But after countless battles since then, its strength had greatly increased compared to that time. So, after attacking without hesitation, it found that compared to its original habitat, the humans here were like sand.
No threat, crumbling at a touch.
Even their weapons were the same.
But after living here for a short while, it discovered something else: though there were no threats, there were also no other members of its species.
One day, after living for quite some time, the Diablos, who had claimed the entire The Great Delos Desert as its territory, suddenly heard a familiar sound.
It was the roar a female Diablos makes during courtship.
As the saying goes, 'When well-fed, one thinks of lust.' Moreover, hearing the sound of its own kind again in a place with no other members of its species, let alone a single female, was impossible to resist.
It was simply irresistible.
So it immediately began to relentlessly pursue the source of the sound. But for some reason, each time it arrived at the location, it only found a human-built camp.
But after repeated disappointments, just as it was beginning to distrust these noises, a fierce, urgent roar, as if everything was impatient, appeared once more. And it was many times louder than before.
After much deliberation, it finally embarked on its companion-seeking journey once again. But because the distance was too great, it could only pinpoint a general direction and range; the rest it had to find itself.
However, because it had hesitated and delayed for so long, and to prevent its potential mate from growing impatient, it had originally intended to ignore these mosquito-like nuisances in its focused search. But it was like encountering a mosquito buzzing in its ear just as it was trying to sleep.
Under prolonged harassment, the Diablos became annoyed by the constantly pursuing cars and attacks around it.
Suddenly, the Diablos, never one with a good temper, decided to teach these things a lesson.
Using its hearing to pinpoint the target's location, it slightly changed the digging direction of its forelimbs, and the next moment, the constantly bulging marks on the ground instantly ceased.
It submerged itself deeper.
Scattered cheers rose from the crowd, but Zhu Yuan vaguely felt something was amiss.
Suddenly, a shout came from the walkie-talkie.
"Move! Don't stay put!"
And this was precisely the shout from Tolun, who had earlier encountered the monster.
The man who had previously been too scared to breathe in front of the monster suddenly burst with boundless courage upon learning its direction was towards New Eridu's city center. He had become one of the police officers constantly evacuating the area.
And after seeing the monster's tracks suddenly vanish, the familiar scene made him instantly realize something. The predatory method he had first witnessed from the monster, that sudden attack from underground catching them completely off guard, was still deeply seared into his mind.
So he pressed the walkie-talkie on his chest without hesitation.
Out of trust for her teammate, Zhu Yuan likewise slammed on the accelerator without hesitation. It proved that Zhu Yuan's trust was absolutely correct.
The spot where the car had been parked quickly began to bulge, and the next second, the giant monster burst out from the ground.
If Zhu Yuan had hesitated for even a second, the police car would never have escaped the cracking ground, and would have been utterly pulverized beneath the monster's hideous giant horns. And Zhu Yuan, inside the police car, would inevitably have met the same fate.
Only then did the monster's true form fully reveal itself before Zhu Yuan.
Looking at the monster, which resembled a demon crawling up from hell, although she had some mental preparation thanks to the information provided by Tolun, the previous eyewitness, she still had to admit that her imagination had been too limited.
"Can such a monster truly appear naturally?!"
But the complete absence of Ether fluctuations on its body at least indicated that it was not an Ether-creature born in the Hollows that could operate outside of them. That was, at least, the only good news among a pile of bad.
But no matter how incomprehensible it was, it had undeniably appeared right before her eyes.
Previously, it couldn't be attacked directly due to the ground's obstruction, but now that it had emerged from underground, things were different.
Zhu Yuan immediately picked up the Riot Suppression K22, which was already assembled and sitting in the passenger seat, raised it, aimed, and fired the Ether buckshot from the gun, but it only sparked off its scales. Bullets capable of piercing heavy armor left not even a scratch upon impact.
However, when the subsequent missile exploded near its head, the intense flash of fire made it let out a pained roar, instantly giving Zhu Yuan a glimmer of hope.
But as the smoke cleared, though the monster instinctively shook its head, it revealed a face that was equally unharmed. The missile attack was all smoke, no damage.
Someone, not giving up, fired another missile, but under the explosive flame impact, the monster's scales were merely cleaned of all dust. This time, the missile exploding on its chest didn't even cause a ripple.
At that moment, everyone understood something.
The soil was not the sanctuary they had imagined would protect it; rather, it was a paradise where it could freely roam.
Like a fish living in water, water is merely its living environment; just as air is for humans, underground is merely its living environment.
The Public Security's autonomous mechs that had gathered around also began continuously firing lasers.
The Diablos looked at these annoying metal lumps before it, roared, and directly slammed its claw down.
Like a sky-obscuring shadow, its spiked claws instantly tore apart the collapsed building; steel and rubble, under immense force, transformed into flying projectiles, overturning everything around.
A deep pit instantly appeared on the ground, and countless cracks spread from beneath its hand, like a massive spiderweb. The autonomous mech beneath its claw instantly became a metal pancake, and merely the residual shockwave was enough to make all surrounding autonomous mechs struggle to stay upright.
The Diablos looked at these metal things around it; smashing them one by one was too troublesome. It would be better to clear them out quickly.
Twisting its body, it swung its tail with full force, sweeping away everything around it.
The huge and heavy tail hammer, driven by the Diablos's terrifying strength, transformed into a destructive torrent. Piles of building debris instantly shattered with a clatter under the tail's sweep, pulverized by the immense force and sent flying into the sky like leaves caught in a whirlwind.
Besides the all-destroying tail hammer itself, these flung-out building remnants became projectiles to bombard everything around it.
"Boom! Boom boom!"
All the surrounding buildings that were still standing instantly became riddled with holes and precarious. Some unknown appliance, damaged, burst into fierce flames after a shower of electrical sparks.
Subsequently, one stone stirred up a thousand waves. Like a chain reaction, within a few seconds, accumulated flammable materials began to spread under the scorching flames; soon, the fire completely engulfed the entire high-rise, consuming it in flames.
Violent black smoke obscured the sky, which had been relatively clear, and under the illumination of the soaring flames, it was as if the sunset had begun anew, with orange-red light once again covering most of the sky. But this time, it was no beautiful scenery to behold.
Thick smoke coiled around the monster. Enveloped by flames and smoke, the destructive, ferocious monster truly seemed like a demon invading reality.
And its purpose was to bring disaster upon the world.
____
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